Brilliant: The You Know Me Button

Very, very needed.  Not just cool but needed: 

A simple addition to discussion group software makes it easy for a user to go to one place to monitor all conversations he or she is part of. As an extra bonus, it forms the basis for global identity. All that's needed is one new user interface concept, to be supported by most or all discussion group applications, and a simple protocol.

A new button 

Consider the place where a discussion group asks for your personal information. Three pieces of data are commonly requested: your name, email address, and the URL of your weblog.

Add an additional element, a badge-sized image that says You Know Me. When the user clicks on it, a new page is displayed by the discussion group software, asking the user for two pieces of information: the domain name of a server responding to the protocol described below, and the user's ID with that server. [_Go_]

I don't want to debate technical details on this one (all of us can toss our hats into the ring on the right way to implement an API and pick our nits but Dave has thrown out a trial balloon and more power to him). 

What this would give us is the ability for a user to have a single web page, somewhere, that showed all the discussions you've contributed to as well as their status.  That would make the kind of shared discussion that we not only need but also want much, much more viable.  Who has the time to go and check back for comments that you left on a blog?  This solves that nicely.

Thank you Dave.

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Cool Conference: E-Narrative

This looks cool.  [_Go_]

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More on the MIT Spam Conference

Here's a Slashdot discussion on the Spam Conference.  [_Go_]

Out of this discussion, read Chris Dever's notes; they are better than mine and very good.  [_Go_]

The webcasts from the conference will also be online for the next six months.  [_Go_]

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More on the RIAA / ISPs

Here's a well stated reason for opposition to this:

ISPs should be held accountable for the actions of their users and charged a fee for giving their customer's access to services such as Kazaa or Morpheus.

The result of holding ISPs liable for the ways their customers use them would be catastrophic. Should ISPs be held accountable for the actions of pedophiles? How about members of racist groups? How about groups that are legal but we wish weren't, like the KKK, Aryan Nation, and the American Polka Dancing Society?

While ISPs are held accountable for removing illegal materials when detected, the idea that they should be held accountable for what their users might do is ridiculous. [_Go_]

Note: While I am not a Polka fan, I do not really have an opinion on this part of the commentary.

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Ouch !

If you're not a Microsoft fan then read this.  [_Go_]

Note: Its no longer true but just the concept is funny as hell.

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Death to the VCR?

Interesting:

For the first time ever, last year DVD players outsold VCRs, by 17 million to 13.5 million, and now the Consumer Electronics Association is predicting that the VCR will be extinct by the end of the decade. [_Go_]

Now for the opposing view.  I'm NOT a big DVD fan.  Yes I like the image quality.  It is lovely.  So what don't I like?  All the *crap*.  Put the disc in, use the menu (of which every single one is different), pick what you want, play.  Sheesh.  I really do like the VCR model of "Insert-Press Play".  I don't mind there being additional stuff on a dvd but I don't want to be forced through it. 

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Extensible Software is Good Engineering

It is always a sign of good engineering when you don't have to wait for the manufacturer to extend software for new standards.  Here's an example from Mark Bernstein's Tinderbox:

I found I was enjoying Safari's speed so much that I had to add Safari support to Tinderbox. You could do this too, if you're a thrill seeker; inside the Tinderbox package there's a config folder with a file called html_helpers.xml. Add a line for Safari (signature 'sfri'), and Tinderbox will know all about Safari. [_Go_]

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Finally!  A New Free Speech Victory

Wow.  This is good news:

Product reviews and benchmark tests on Network Asociates' products do not break the law, says a US judge in a ruling hailed by free-speech advocates

In a victory for free-speech advocates and product reviewers, a New York state judge has ruled that Network Associates can't prevent people from talking about its products.

New York state Supreme Court Justice Marilyn Shafer issued a ruling, made public this week, prohibiting the security software specialist from trying to use its end-user licence agreements to ban product reviews or benchmark tests. [_Go_]

Woo Hoo !!!

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ISPs Should Pay for File Swapping

Here's an interesting theory:

The chair of the RIAA has a radical solution to the perceived problem with file-swapping, but some in the industry feel it may be unworkable

A top music industry representative said on Saturday that telecommunications companies and Internet service providers will be asked to pay up for giving their customers access to free song-swapping sites.

The music industry is in a tailspin with global sales of CDs expected to fall 6 percent in 2003, its fourth consecutive annual decline. A major culprit, industry watchers say, is online piracy. [_Go_]

If this succeeds then you'd have to expect that access to Usenet will be subject to the same tariffs.  And then access to the web itself.

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